{"id":2637,"date":"2010-01-28T10:16:55","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T18:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/?p=2637"},"modified":"2010-01-28T10:16:55","modified_gmt":"2010-01-28T18:16:55","slug":"more-ipad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/28\/more-ipad\/","title":{"rendered":"More iPad"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. Shitty Name<\/span><\/p>\n

There’s a linguist somewhere who can explain why the hard "a" sound in "Pad" is unappealing.\u00c2\u00a0 "iSlate" was better.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the Web prognostications were better.\u00c2\u00a0 And if the original hard drive iPod can be renamed the "Classic", maybe the iPod Touch can be renamed the "iPhone For Verizon Subscribers" and the iPad can gain its rightful title, "iTouch".<\/p>\n

2. Narrative<\/span><\/p>\n

Steve Jobs understands it’s about story.\u00c2\u00a0 Whenever you try to sell something, facts and emotions need to be woven into a fable, starting here and ending up there.\u00c2\u00a0 Presentation is key.<\/p>\n

And speaking of presentation, the Keynote effect of dust being blown up whenever a price descended was genius.\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like when lasers were first introduced in rock shows.<\/p>\n

3. No Fakery<\/span><\/p>\n

Jobs was actually using the iPad, you could see what he was doing on it transferred to the big screen, it lent credence to the product, to the whole proceeding.\u00c2\u00a0 When you drape your music in effects, it actually undercuts the music itself.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, if the music can’t stand on its own…<\/p>\n

4. A&R<\/span><\/p>\n

The presentation needed to be shorter and needed a hit single.<\/p>\n

Got to give Jobs credit, when no one was clapping, he didn’t lose his cool, he didn’t speed up, he stayed to the script.\u00c2\u00a0 If you do live presentations, you know this is almost impossible to achieve.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why bands will tell you one show is better than the next, they can feel the energy of the audience, the audience was with them.\u00c2\u00a0 Steve started out with the audience in his hand, then he lost them, minute by minute.<\/p>\n

5. Hit Single<\/span><\/p>\n

Jobs needed the one killer app that would make us rush out and buy an iPad.\u00c2\u00a0 He was so busy focusing on album tracks, he forgot the home run.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the iPad can surf, display pictures, create presentations, but what can it do that wows us? The iPad is like a blank CD.\u00c2\u00a0 The technology is marvelous.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 But you get over that.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the music is what you’re truly interested in, even if the sound ain’t that great, you get the magic of "Satisfaction".<\/p>\n

One can argue that iBooks is the killer app.\u00c2\u00a0 If so, Jobs should have focused on that, convinced people why they needed the iPad for books.\u00c2\u00a0 Talked about inventory, prices, readability.\u00c2\u00a0 But he did none of this.\u00c2\u00a0 So busy trumpeting elements we didn’t care about, he buried his message.<\/p>\n

6. Saving The Media Business<\/span><\/p>\n

I think Jobs tried.\u00c2\u00a0 But he shouldn’t have introduced the product until he had partners.\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, he’s not shipping for 60 days anyway.\u00c2\u00a0 It would have looked better if there were more desirable ways to consume films and tv shows and magazines, all the elements the media speculated about.\u00c2\u00a0 But these were completely absent.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like launching a new record company without product.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you might have some legendary executives, you’re getting me to pay attention, but now what?<\/p>\n

7. Buzz<\/span><\/p>\n

Now this is the modern music business.\u00c2\u00a0 Where the anticipation is at a fever pitch, and the product is wanting.\u00c2\u00a0 And by telling us how great the iPad was, Jobs just made us uncomfortable.\u00c2\u00a0 He would have been better off underselling it. Talking about hopes and dreams.<\/p>\n

Again and again, Jobs has delivered.\u00c2\u00a0 Met our expectations, even exceeded them.\u00c2\u00a0 This time, he did not.\u00c2\u00a0 Proving that everybody can fuck up.<\/p>\n

But if you know your rock history, Bob Dylan finally released a clunker known as "Self Portrait".\u00c2\u00a0 Reviews were scathing. What did Dylan do?\u00c2\u00a0 He immediately went back into the studio and recorded "New Morning".\u00c2\u00a0 Because when you’re pissed and you’ve got something to prove, you refocus, you can do great work almost instantly.<\/p>\n

Steve…\u00c2\u00a0 How about another presentation the day this product actually ships?<\/p>\n

And how about a Verizon iPhone?\u00c2\u00a0 Yeah, I know it’s incompatible technology, that only a few countries use CDMA, but trumpeting AT&T is like the music industry trumpeting slotMusic and the Digital Compact Cassette, lame formats that work for the businesses purveying them, but are considered a joke by the public.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. Shitty Name There’s a linguist somewhere who can explain why the hard "a" sound in "Pad" is unappealing.\u00c2\u00a0 "iSlate" was better.\u00c2\u00a0 So many of the Web prognostications were better.\u00c2\u00a0 And if the original hard drive iPod can be renamed the "Classic", maybe the iPod Touch can be renamed the "iPhone For Verizon Subscribers" and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apple"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-Gx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2638,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2637\/revisions\/2638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}